Losing Sin Weight | Ezekiel 33 | Gary Hamrick

let's go to ezekiel chapter 33 and we're gonna be looking at two verses verses 10 and 11 out of Ezekiel 33 if you need a Bible today a rushers are gonna come down the island a minute here with Bibles in hand and if you need one just raise a hand in their direction they'll be glad to give you a Bible and if you take a church Bible from one of them its page 848 ezekiel chapter 33 and page 848 in the church bibles let me set the stage a little bit before we read these verses following the invasion of Jerusalem by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon which started in 606 BC and culminated with the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC following this invasion were deported to Babylon thousands of Jews that he took captive back to Babylon the capital city of Babylonia the empire that existed in what is today primarily the territory of Iraq and the Jewish people will spend the next 70 years in exile in Babylon contemplating their sin it was all God's designed because he wanted to awaken them to their rebellion against him and so he puts them in effect on a seventy year timeout and about twelve years into their 70 year captivity which is where we are here in ezekiel chapter 33 about 12 years now into their 70 years of captivity their hard hearts finally start to melt Ezekiel the man after whom this book is named is a prophet raised up by God to warn the people he's living among them among the exiles in Babylon he's warning them he's telling them that judgment is not just going to come in the form of the destruction of their home city back in Jerusalem it's going to come to them personally unless they get right with God and so twelve years into the seven years of captivity now they finally heed the words of Ezekiel that God is speaking through him and you begin to see their hearts melting a little bit here in ezekiel chapter 33 I want to draw your attention to two verses verses 10 and 11 and we we see that their hearts are melting through what God says in quoting them he's going to cloak the people the Jewish people living in exile in Babylon and you're gonna hear in in the way he quotes them that their hearts are melting somewhat towards the the gravity of their own sin so look with me here at chapter 33 verses 10 and 11 God says there for you O son of man son of man was a nickname for Ezekiel God's calling him son of man in this context and so God is instructing Ezekiel here and he says in verse 10 say to the house of Israel say to the Jewish captives there in Babylon thus you say so here's where God quotes them God's listening and he's quoting them if our transgressions and our sins lie upon us in other words burden us and we pine away we waste away in them how can we then live and that God turns to Ezekiel in verse 11 and he says say to them as I live says the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turned from his way and live turn turn from your evil ways for why should you die o house of Israel now when it gives you those verses again in the New Living Translation it just it kind of puts it in more modern language and here's what it says son of man give the people of Israel this message you are saying and any quotes our sins are heavy upon us that's why I underlined it in the screen to emphasize our sins are heavy upon us we are wasting away how can we survive as surely as I live says the sovereign Lord I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live turn turn from your wickedness o people of Israel why should you die so I want to talk to you today about what to do when sin weighs you down in a sermon ivan ty losing weight or the subtitle as I just said what to do when sin waves you down let's have a word of Prayer father we thank you for the opportunity to gather here in your house together and to worship you to partake of communion together to remember your sacrifice and not open up your word and to study together what you would say to us through these verses we pray that we would be receptive Lord to what you would want to minister to us today that we would receive Lord your instruction your encouragement the way you gently challenge us and we thank you in response Lord that you first loved us we love you in Jesus name and everybody said amen when we are not right with God that is to say when we have unconfessed sin in our lives or we are living in disobedience to the Lord or dishonouring him and we haven't repented we've just we're just kind of living that way and and and kind of enjoying it even eventually we begin to feel the weight of our sin a lifestyle that is in constant disobedience and dishonouring god without confessing getting right with him on a regular basis begins to feel heavy David understood this in fact David what David would write about it regarding his own sinful condition isn't the weight of his own sinful heart you know it's interesting about King David you know he's the second king of Israel you ask anybody on the street who may not even know their Bibles have you ever heard of King David the the guy in the Bible a lot of people say yeah heard of the guy and if you ask them you know what's the one thing that you know about David even people who don't go to church and don't necessarily know the Bible will probably be able to say to you oh yeah he's that guy that had an affair with some woman you know Bathsheba and and that's true you know what I find interesting about David's life is that you know here we are thousands of years later still talking about it aren't you glad that you sins were not recorded in the Bible for people to read about thousands of years later but that's the situation with David and God exposes his life for our benefit and one of the things that's beneficial for us to understand about his own sinful choices was that he illustrates exactly what we're reading here he wrote in the Psalms about the heaviness of his heart when he lived with unconfessed sin when he hadn't repented of this affair with Bathsheba and he and he felt like nobody really knew and everything was you know copacetic is because it was kind of hidden and and it didn't hurt anybody else so he thought you know and and yet the fact is that God always sees and God always knows and God's heart always breaks and because of his love for us he'll never let us remain the way we are and he'll start to put the squeeze on us and David started feeling the squeeze of God and he wrote in the Psalms about the heaviness that he started to feel for example in psalm 32 verses 1 to 4 David said this blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered not covered up but basically covered over by the Lord he said blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit when I kept silent he writes here my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long for day and night your hand Lord was heavy upon me my vitality was turned into the drought of summer your rights are very honestly about how when I had unconfessed sin in my life and I kept silent before God I just felt the heaviness upon me God's heavy hand I felt like the droughts of summer like I was living in an arid wasteland like you know things in my life were just really dry and unfruitful he would write similarly in Psalm chapter 38 verses 3 & 4 he says there is no soundness in my flesh because of your anger nor any health in my bones because of my sin for my iniquities have gone over my head new King James says NIV says my guilt has overwhelmed me it's the idea of being like you're drowning yeah and and it just is overwhelming and he describes the overwhelming feeling of just living and unconfessed sin and he adds like a heavy burden this is Psalm 38 verse 4 like a heavy burden they aren't too heavy for me and so this is the kind of thing that the Jewish people are feeling here now finally in Babylon they're finally coming to terms with their own sinful heart now the primary sin of the Jewish people living in captivity has been up to this point not the only sin but the primary sin has been idolatry that they had been carving images out of wood and fashioning images out of metal and bowing down to them literally bowing down to them worshiping them as gods and they did this for 400 years before they're sent into captivity God had put up with their idolatry for 400 years this had been going on where they adopt the gods of the nations around them start carving little statues little idols worshipping them instead of the true and living God he's been putting out with us for 400 years now the reason I point this out is because sometimes people have this view of God like he's just really angry God by God's a vengeful God God you won one small move it God's gonna SWAT you like a bug and people have this idea of God let me tell you something when people talk like that to me they say you know isn't God just quick to punish and judge and he's just ventral he's an angry god I want to say to them listen how long would you be tolerant of someone who constantly cheated on you probably not 400 years I mean I'm guessing but probably not 400 years all right how patient does God have to be with us it was patient for 400 years with his own people and he sends him off to captivity to purge them of their idolatry and even after putting up with all of this nonsense for 400 years he sends them off on a timeout so that he can take him back cuz he he takes us back time and time again how many times have we been unfaithful of God he has always still been faithful to us this is the nature of our Father in heaven he's not quick to bring justice he's not swift with vengeance he is patient with us not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance 2nd Peter 3:9 this is the long-suffering nature of our Father so when you think about what's happening here in other places in the Bible don't rush to the conclusion that God is just quick to express his vengeance he's a very patient God a very loving God and he's dealing with his own people over this primary set of idolatry psalm 115 describes the the foolishness of their idolatry with these words it says that they had turned to idols of silver and gold made by the hands of men that these idols have mouths but cannot speak eyes but they cannot see they have ears but they cannot hear noses but they cannot smell they have hands but cannot feel feet but they cannot walk nor can they utter a sound with their throats those who make them will be like them and so will all who trust in them in other words if you are doing such a foolish thing you're gonna end up just as foolish as those mute idols and then the psalmist adds later psalm 115 verse 9 o house of israel trust in the lord he is your help and shield o house of Aaron trust in the Lord he is your help and shield you who fear Him trust in the Lord he is your help and shield it's a sad thing if you if you're worshiping a god that you can carry under your arm isn't that a sad thing that's what they weren't doing we're carving these images and putting them under their arms and transporting them around and what good are those little gods they're not gonna save you the abbé mouths where they cannot speak they have hands but they cannot feel they have feet they can't walk they can't do a thing for you but this was their sin and this is what they had turned to for hundreds of years and so God sends them off to captivity they he takes them away from their comfort zone if you will he removes them from their land the temple gets destroyed and you know how it is that and you have everything precious to you stripped away you finally turn to God and that's what happened so they had everything precious to them stripped away the temple their homeland their families everything when they were taken captive to Babylon often families were separated because the Bible talks about weeping in Rama Rama was the point north from Israel where they then went over to Babylon where children were separated from their mothers so you get over to Babylon and you have lost everything and everything's foreign to you and uncommon to you you're gonna finally probably turn to God that's usually what happens with us when when when God gets us to the place where all these other things have been stripped away and we have nowhere else to turn except to him then that's finally when we come to our senses and and find his loving compassionate forgiveness waiting for us and that's what happens here in our story it takes me 12 years but they finally begin to melt and they begin to turn to God and when they turn to God here's what happens they come to the awareness of the crushing weight of their sin and under the crushing weight of their sin they are they are experiencing guilt and shame for what they've done you know guilt and shame aren't the problem guilt and shame are just the symptoms of the larger problem the larger problem that affects all of us is sin when we break the heart of God because we dishonor him or disobey him when we're not right with God we sin now we're all sinners the Bible makes it clear there's none righteous no not one when we feel guilt and shame the guilt and shame is the result of our sin people who try to just remedy the guilt problem we're never really dealing with the root issue there's a lot of people in our culture today who aren't aware of why they feel so guilty why they feel so ashamed and so they medicate or they counsel they try to do a lot of things to alleviate the guilt in the shame if they never get to the real root issue which is the sin issue then they can never be free from the guilt in the shame see how that works and so it's tragic for people who don't understand this and if you're here today and you don't understand the correlation between guilt and shame and sin I hope you do before you leave here today because God wants to relieve you not of the guilt and shame by itself but of the sin issue so that then the accompanying guilt and shame can be relieved as well the people here are saying if you notice what we read in verses 10 and 11 from Ezekiel 33 when they come to grips with the weight of their sin it's so crushing that they say we don't know if we can survive this that's literally what they say we don't know if we can survive this new King James says how then can we live now if you think those words are dramatic that's because you've never been in a real dark valley of sin because if you've ever experienced a really really dark valley of sin and you know you've been disobedient to God and and you and you and you feel that separation of that relationship or that that connection of God because you've been in this deep valley of sin unrepentant unconfessed sin you know how despairing that can be and and if you don't turn to God it could be so crippling that here's what begins to happen you begin to either think that God so upset with you you're gonna die or you're so upset with yourself that you want to die or both and and please understand the enemy would love for you to die under the weight of guilt and shame Satan loves that because he's all about condemnation he's all about heaping more guilt more shame so that then you would want to die under the weight of guilt and shame that's his MO and let me tell you something no doubt people die every day at their own hand because of guilt and shame because of something that they've done and my friends it doesn't have to be that way it doesn't have to be that way because you see God still loved the world he sent Christ to die for us so that our sin problem could be dealt with on the cross so that by trusting what Jesus did for us and receiving forgiveness of our sins the guilt and the shame are relieved along with the sin so that we might live we might be free and this is and this is what God wants for people he wants people to be free cause people to be free from the shame and the guilt he wants people that's why he says turn turn then because I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked turn turn then that you might live why should you die o house of Israel in other words why why should you succumb listen to me on this there's a big difference between condemnation which is the tool of the enemy and conviction which is the tool of the Holy Spirit there's a big difference between those two things condemnation it is is an effort at the enemy to keep you constantly under the weight of your guilt conviction by the Holy Spirit on the other hand is where God brings you to a place of surrender so that you can give him the shame and guilt of your sin so that he can take it from you that you that you might be free he whom the son sets free is free indeed there are too many people walking around today under a heavy load of guilt and shame because of the sin problem and I'm here to tell you Jesus wants to set you free that's why in Romans 8:1 Paul writes there's therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit for the law of the spirit of the life of Christ has set me free from the law of sin and death there's freedom in knowing him and having a relationship with your Creator the guilt and the shame lifted the heavy weight the crushing burden of our sin paid for by Christ on a cross and this is what God wants for us because he is for you he's not against you he's for you someone who's against you does not send His only Son to die for you Jesus died for us Romans 5:8 says that God demonstrated his own love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us and as I quoted earlier 2nd Peter 3:9 God is patient not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance why because God is for you that's why he says your turn turn from your evil ways if you're taking notes the way to lose the weight of sin is to turn from the way of sin and turn toward God that's what he wanted for his people that's what he wants for us the way to lose the weight of sin if you're here today you're carrying around guilt and shame and this unconfessed sin you're gonna have an opportunity to really get right with the Lord today and just let him take all that from you but you have to turn from the way of sin and turn towards God this is basically what Jesus meant in Matthew 11:28 2:30 when he invites people to come damn he says come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light let me put the verse up there for you he says come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light now they were an agrarian society they were a farming community so they understood the terminology of this verse but Jesus talking about the idea of you know being yoked what does he mean when he talks about yoke because this is an agrarian term and so for the sake of you millennial Washington suburban eyes who like soy lattes and skinny jeans and have never been in a farm he does not mean this alright that's yoke y ou LK alright what he means is this this is a wooden harness that's a yoke y ou ke where oxen would be yoked together now typically in that day here's what they would do they would yoke together an older stronger larger ox with a smaller younger weaker ox they would be harnessed together this is the language that Jesus is using there in Matthew 11 and what he's talking about he is the idea that when an older stronger oxen was linked to a smaller weaker oxen it would be for two reasons the smaller oxen would learn ox would learn from the stronger older one and in addition the older stronger bigger ox would carry the weight of the burden because he was larger and so the younger one the smaller one would just kind of be going along for the journey learning but the weight of the burden would not be so much on the smaller younger ox because the larger stronger one was doing the lion's share if you will of of hauling the weight so now Jesus uses this terminology Matthew chapter 11 and he's talking about how the invitation is come to me he says in other words have relationship with me be a follower of mine come to me all you were weary and burdened listen to that he says and I will give you rest now what burden is he talking about well you read different commentaries and some some people say it means the burden of the law and it could be I mean Jesus did condemn the religious leaders of the day because he said you do heap heavy burdens upon men's shoulders by just making them think that the law was the sole way to get to God the law was not the way to get to God the law was a mirror to point out your sin so that you would cry out for a savior in order to get to God that's what Jesus comes later to fulfill the ultimate aspect of the law we understand the righteous standard of God by looking at the law and the moral code of the law is still intact but Jesus Jesus comes as a savior because God understands that the law was never intended to save us the law was intended to be a mirror to show us our sin nature so we would cry out for a savior but the problem is the religious leaders of Jesus day were saying all you have to do is try to keep all all the letters of the law and then you'll be good to go and God will love you who can do that nobody can do that so it could be that Jesus talking about you know I've come to lighten the load of the burden of the law it could mean in general he's come to lighten the burden life in general I mean all of us go through things in life and it's good to know that when you're harnessed to Jesus the burdens of life are easier but I think that probably the third reason is and and and those those up first two are valid but I think the third reason is probably the greater point Jesus trying to make and he's talking about the burden of sin because he he says if you come to mean if you're yoked with me via relationship with me you will find rest for your souls you see you will find rest for your souls and all of us need rest for our souls we all need to be in a place we're at peace with ourselves in a peace with God and as long as we're carrying around the weight of the sin and the shame and the guilt we're not at rest we're burdened Jesus says if you come to me you'll find rest for your souls I've died in effect is what he's saying to us I've died to lighten the load to take the weight of your sins and the guilt and the shame that accompany that and to make you free to make you free now I want to illustrate this today and I and I'm gonna need somebody to help me illustrate this so I need a young man I need I need a guy like 20-something or I need a high school guy who wants to volunteer I need somebody to come on up don't be don't be embarrassed don't fight over it I'm not gonna hurt you come on who wants to be 20-something guy there you go come on up here let's give a hand to this guy right here come on [Applause] hey come stand over here what's your name I'm cougar cougar what a great name yeah that is your real that is awesome it's a manly name there's no girl I know named cougar all right here's what I need I mean you know there's there's some Cougars out there but nobody with the name cougar all right now all right there we go I thought I was gonna need your help all right I want you to hold this bucket now it's not gonna not yet all right now all right step away from it just a little bit and I want you to hold this out I don't want you to hold it like turn you there you go all right there you go all right now cougar here that's such a great name I just I'm loving this Jaguar here is he's represents all of us all right and the bucket that he's holding represents our different sins all right that we carry around and in this bucket I've got a few rocks that represent the different sins okay for example what's this one say cougar unforgiveness unforgiveness sorry it went around the side of the rock unforgiveness that's going in the bucket yeah if you had surgery on that arm all right then no this is my illustration be quiet alright now what's in that alright you can talk what's the next one lust lust we're gonna put that in the bucket you doing all right over there he can't speak all right pride by the way as I'm going through these you might recognize some of your own I'm just saying breaking oaths how about this one read you're doing all right all right doing okay all right here we go hatred all right you're gonna start to feel this one rage ready there you go you're doing all right okay how about how about here we go stealing sexual sin here's a couple more yeah those are big yeah that's the break all right all right give him a hand give them a hand now hold it hold him both like this there you go all right now I got it I got a feet I got a few more here in the bucket don't go away yet gossiping lying drunkenness we're gonna throw these in the bucket and and what else do we have we have we have murder and envy all right just a few more to top it off all right now this is this is represents all of us right here okay now this is what Jesus came to do go ahead give it to me that's what he came to do came to take this this is what Jesus came to do he came to take our buckets that weigh us down with guilt and shame Thank You Cougar give him a hand [Music] listen to me listen to me everybody some of you came in here with heavy buckets that have weighed you down the shame and the guilt the crushing weight of sin this is why Jesus said come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light I'm gonna give you the opportunity today to just kind of let Jesus take your bucket and to feel free when you leave here today there's no reason why you need to leave way down the same way you might have come in here and so for the sake of anybody here who wants to just receive Christ today and be free I'm gonna invite you to make a decision to come to the one who said come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest I'm gonna ask everybody to stand if you would please and I'm gonna make it easy for people who might want to make a decision for Christ today here's what I'm gonna ask you to do I'm gonna start to pray and then as soon as I'm done praying we're gonna sing and either while I'm praying or while we sing if you want to make a decision for Christ today and receive His forgiveness and know what it is to be free then make a bold decision for him today and get out of your seats and you come and stand down here don't be embarrassed or ashamed you're among people who understand if we know Christ already as our Savior that what Jesus said in John 8:36 is true he whom the son sets free is free indeed if you want to be free make a decision for Christ today don't feel distant from God anymore and don't play games with him he died to set us free he invites us to come because he wants to take the burden of our sins and the weight of it with its guilt and its shame so while I am praying or while we sing you want Christ you want to make a decision today to be free you just slip out from your seat you come stand down here everybody who's standing down here then I'm gonna lead in a collective word of prayer okay and we'll applaud you for this decision because we rejoice with you that you want to receive Christ and be free from the burden and the weight father we thank you that you love us so much that you gave Jesus and I know that there are some of us here in this room today that have been carrying around a bucketload of guilt and shame for a long time and today lord I pray that they would be free I pray that they would leave this place today knowing that they've been forgiven knowing that all the things they've been carrying around in that bucket or gone and the weight of it and the shame of it in the guilt of it there's therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus father I pray that people would be set free from the condemnation the guilt the shame that they would know what it is to walk with heads held high because of what you've done for us people walking forgiving people walking free not filled with shame and guilt but free Lord so many people the enemy wants to keep captive to the guilt in the shame so many people have harmed themselves because of the guilt and the shame no no more Lord no more please Lord we pray that you would open the eyes of the hearts of many people that no longer would they be crippled under the weight of condemnation but they would understand that in conviction there's freeness there's wholeness their salvation Lord how we love you and we think draw now to yourself those that want to be free need to be free we thank you together in Jesus name Amen we're gonna sing Ben's gonna lead us you come and you join these folks already come on you come as we sing though I need you [Music] Wow the advance my Oh [Music] in order you every you're my one defense my I just miss Oh God come on folks make a decision today don't leave here carrying the same weight the same shame the same guilt don't leave here with that let's get it right and let's just get it lifted because of what Christ has done for us we're gonna sing this again you just come you want to join these other folks who are already down here before we pray come on if the words tugging on your heart don't delay just get out of your seats you heard people already applauding for these folks they'll applaud for you too as a way of encouraging you in making this decision for Christ today so let's sing this you come if the Lord is leading you I need you you [Music] Oh God how are we [Music] [Applause] [Music] anybody else god bless you man come on anybody else [Applause] [Music] anybody else before I pray with these folks I'm so thankful for the decision you all have made today and I know that the Lord is gonna do a wonderful new work in your heart and in your life and so I'm just gonna invite you to pray with me just out loud I'm gonna lead you in this prayer and together we're just gonna collectively pray this out loud unto the Lord okay so just pray it with me out loud just say Lord Jesus I thank you that you love me so much that you died for me you died for every single sin and the shame of it and the guilt of it and I pray right now that you would forgive me that you would lift the weight of all of my sin I place it on you and I trust you as my Lord and Savior I receive your forgiveness say it again I receive your forgiveness and I trust you as my Lord and Savior in Jesus name I pray and everybody said amen amen [Music] [Applause] we are [Music] we can you tell how happy they are for you we rejoice with you in your decision today if you already know Christ as your Savior you don't need to take a Bible if today was just a day to just kind of recommit or just to you know ask the Lord to relieve you of the sin and the guilt then then that's great too but today the decision you've made is a life-changing decision because what Christ has done for you on the cross none of us earns it we can't you know we don't deserve it but it's what Christ has done for us and so we're so happy with you and what the Lord has done for you today so amen let's give the Lord praise you guys go eternity [Music] father in heaven we we're grateful for the cross we're grateful for grace we thank you Lord that we are made free in Jesus Christ no more condemnation no more guilt no more shame forgiven and free by the blood of Jesus Christ and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we thank you together in Jesus name and everybody said amen and amen god bless y'all have a great day [Music]

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

Views: 5,753

Rating: 4.9008265 out of 5

Keywords: sin, weight, burden

Id: KIOF6NfJug8

Length: 38min 43sec (2323 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 22 2019